309 F.2d 677 - Regan v. Marshall — 309 F.2d 677

How this case has been cited

Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently November 2022

5 federal appellate · 2 district ·

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

¶1James M. Winston, Manchester, N. H., for appellant.

¶2Shane Devine, Manchester, N. H., with whom Devine, Millimet, McDonough, Stahl & Branch, Manchester, N. H., were on brief, for appellee.

¶3Before WOODBURY, Chief Judge, and HARTIGAN and ALDRICH, Circuit Judges.

¶4ALDRICH, Circuit Judge.

¶5This is an action brought in the District Court for the District of Nev> Hampshire to recover $10,000 for the death of plaintiff’s intestate in New Hampshire under N.H.Rev.Stat. Ch. 556 § 13 (Supp.1961), plus interest at 6 per *678cent by virtue of Ch. 524 § 1-b (Supp. 1961).1 The court dismissed for lack of the jurisdictional amount. 28 U.S.C.A. § 1332(a). This was correct. When the statute requires that the amount in controversy “exceeds the sum … of $10,000, exclusive of interest and costs …” it makes no difference whether the interest which is sought accumulated upon the principal obligation sued upon because of contract, or by common law, or by statute, or whether the interest be termed a penalty or damages, so long as it is an incident arising solely by virtue of a delay in payment.2 Merrigan v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., D.C.E.D.La.1942, 43 F.Supp. 209; Reynolds v. Reynolds, D.C.W.D.Ark., 1946, 65 F.Supp. 916; see City of Pawhuska, Okl. ex rel. Graham v. Midland Valley R. Co., 8 Cir., 1929, 33 F.2d 487. This is not a case where the principal claim itself, at the time it arose, was made up in part of interest. Cf. Brown v. Webster, 1895, 156 U.S. 328, 15 S.Ct. 377, 39 L.Ed. 440. By the same token plaintiff’s cases of suits upon judgments a component of which may have been interest on the original claim are not in point. In such cases the judgment itself constitutes a new and single cause of action. See Richie v. Richie, D.C.E.D.N.Y., 1960, 186 F.Supp. 592, 594; Restatement, Judgments § 47 (1942).

¶6The ease at bar is additionally lacking in merit because under the New Hampshire statute interest accrues only from the date of the commencement of suit. Hence under no possible theory could it be thought that the amount in controversy exceeded the principal sum.

¶7Judgment will be entered affirming the dismissal of the complaint for lack of jurisdiction.